market Archive

  • Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed)

    Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed)

    Posted on June 23, 2010 | No Comments
    Look, we know that checking the Android Market for updates its a nervous habit during brief periods of downtime for many of us -- but for now, you're going to have to go back to chewing your nails or tapping your fingers on the table, because the Market's down. Well, that's only partially true -- you can still get into the Market app on your phone without any errors, you just won't see any apps in there, which renders it pretty useless by our estimation. Hang on, don't panic -- we imagine this won't last long.

    [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

    Update: It's still down for us on a Froyo Nexus One, but if you take a gander through our comments section, you'll see that a lot of folks are having no trouble at all -- so it's probably based on your location, your devices, and your operating system. As far as we can tell, it's not restricted to Froyo since we've received a number of tips on the issue and we're hearing of some Droids that can't see apps. Keep the observations coming, folks!

    Update 2: Google just reached out to us to let us know that it should be fixed and that the total outage was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. They're apologizing for the inconvenience -- but with the Droid X being announced today, can you really hold a grudge?

    Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Adobe expects Flash on 250 million smartphones by end of 2012

    Adobe expects Flash on 250 million smartphones by end of 2012

    Posted on June 11, 2010 | No Comments
    While in the midst of fixing a unicorn-sized hole in the security of its desktop software, Adobe has been talking about its future in the mobile space. According to its rose-tinted forecasts, Flash Player will be featured in a quarter billion handsets by the end of 2012, including 53 percent of all smarphones shipped that year. Those are pretty strident words for a company that has yet to ship Flash Player 10.1 in even one new handset, but we're reminded that Android 2.2's leading position on the issue will be swiftly followed by BlackBerry OS, Symbian, webOS, and Windows Phone 7 supporting the full fat Flash experience. Whether all that momentum will be enough to produce an install base of 250 million, we don't know. What we do know, however, is that people want the blasted thing and Adobe had better start doing a bit more work on its mobile player and a little less talking about it -- that's what we're here for.

    Adobe expects Flash on 250 million smartphones by end of 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android

    Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android

    Posted on May 20, 2010 | No Comments
    Sure sure, Froyo is great and all, but Google just blew our minds with two previews of upcoming Android features at I/O: OTA application installation and remote music streaming. OTA installation is just as simple as you'd expect -- after browsing to an app on your desktop, you can push it to your phone and install it with just a single click, all done over the air. Interestingly, Google also showed music being purchased and transferred from Android Marketplace in the same way, which could indicate a deeper push towards music integration, or just be a nice demo. Either way, it's pretty slick stuff -- the fewer wires we have to carry, the better.

    The remote music streaming is a little crazier: Google bought a company called Simplify Media, which makes a bit of desktop software that can stream all your music directly from iTunes to your phone. The demo was quite slick -- you just open the app and push "all," and all your music is instantly available. Whether or not this'll work over 3G or be limited to the local network is still up in the air, but we're dying to try it out.

    Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • T-Mobile Top Picks brands the Android Market, magenta-style

    T-Mobile Top Picks brands the Android Market, magenta-style

    Posted on December 15, 2009 | No Comments
    T-Mobile's been keen on making its Android customers aware of particular apps since the launch of the myTouch 3G and the App Pack, but there's a problem -- App Pack is its own app, which is kinda unwieldy when you've already got the Market sitting there. That's where Top Picks appears to come into play, the carrier's next-gen effort to inject some of its opinions into its users' app selection process by integrating directly with the Market, much as Verizon has done on the Droid. Customers can expect to get updated with Top Picks "over the next couple of weeks," though it requires Android 1.6 -- we're guessing that means no CLIQ or Behold II love for the time being.

    T-Mobile Top Picks brands the Android Market, magenta-style originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Verizon ad confirms Droid is a not-quite pretty ‘racehorse duct taped to a Scud missile’

    Verizon ad confirms Droid is a not-quite pretty ‘racehorse duct taped to a Scud missile’

    Posted on December 3, 2009 | No Comments
    There's something peculiar about Verizon's latest addition to its promotional Droid onslaught. Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like "it rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana," but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it's not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses. "Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?" (Wonder who that's a reference to.) Listen Verizon, trading "hairdo for can do" is great and all, but why can't we simply have both brains and beauty? Still, it's nice to know the fighting words haven't all but left the industry. See the ad for yourself after the break.

    [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

    Continue reading Verizon ad confirms Droid is a not-quite pretty 'racehorse duct taped to a Scud missile'

    Verizon ad confirms Droid is a not-quite pretty 'racehorse duct taped to a Scud missile' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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